FVWM2

FVWM2

Image - Default Theme

This is more or less what FVWM2 looks like in its default mode. Since
I've used 640x480 for these screenshots, everything is a little
compressed. Notice the icon manager and the virtual desktop manager
in particular - these are staples of FVWM.

Image - BlackBox Theme

This is what FVWM2 looks like in its BlackBox clone mode. The
appearance is remarkably similar, and the behaviour, while not
identical, is also quite similar to BlackBox. FVWM2 has a bunch of
other themes, equally detailed and mostly quite different from each
other. The taskbar was evidently designed for a larger-than-640x480
resolution.

I used version 2.4.16, the most recent stable release in September 2003.
The most recent development release is 2.5.7. Both are dated May 30,
2003.

Documentation

Extensive. Good.

Themes

With the themes package, FVWM is extremely themeable. That includes
behaviour as well as appearance. Quite a few very good themes are
available.

Discussion

I first started using FVWM on Slackware in 1994, a 1.x version. I never
did like its appearance (which was considerably less flexible at the
time than it is now) or feel. I left FVWM as soon as I could for IceWM,
which felt better to me. I wasn't looking forward to revisiting FVWM,
but I was pleasantly surprised. I find that FVWM has improved immensely
with age (and it is pretty damn old ...). If you load the "themes"
package, FVWM becomes one of the most themeable of all WMs. (I don't
think they support shaped windows.) Behaviour is pretty flexible too,
and that may take care of my complaints about feel.

The default behaviour is to use several workspaces, each of which
contains a huge virtual desktop. A slight push on the edge of the
screen flips you from one part of the desktop to another, a behaviour
I've always disliked (a matter of personal taste). The good news is
that like almost everything about FVWM, the edge resistance is
configurable.

To get themes, add the "fvwm-themes" and "fvwm-themes-extra" in addition
to the "fvwm" package (if you're an RPM user). Then add "exec
fvwm-themes-start" to your .xinitrc (or appropriate config file). This
is definitely the way to go with fvwm, unless you feel a desperate need
to edit the extremely complex .fvwm2rc file yourself ... Like most
mature applications, FVWM has developed its incredible flexibility
through the use of an extremely complex RC file. I've dug into the CTWM
config files, but I didn't have enough time during testing for this
report to get into the FVWM files.

When you switch themes, artifacts of the last theme are sometimes left
over. This turns out to be a feature, not a bug: it's possible to pick
and choose parts of several themes to construct your own. Parts you
don't like can be eliminated. If a particular theme doesn't use a
module that the previous theme does, that module is left over from the
previous theme. Ultimately, this is probably a good thing, but it takes
some adjusting to. FVWM will remember the theme-state you leave it in
and restart with the same appearance and behaviour. I'm still mixing
and matching to find my ideal Frankenstein theme.

One other issue I have with FVWM2's default behaviour (like so many
things, it can be overridden) is its extremely old-fashioned icon
handling: it actually minimises applications to an icon on the desktop.
Remember Windows 3.1x? But you can convince it to use a taskbar
(although that's flawed too in my opinion, as it shows all open apps -
not just the ones in the current workspace. This can lead to a very
cluttered taskbar).

Pros

Extremely flexible appearance and behaviour. Can be made to look very
nice. Can be made to behave the way you want it to. Relatively small
memory footprint.